Congressman Leonidas Dyer of Missouri first introduced his Anti-Lynching Bill--known
as the Dyer Bill--into Congress in 1918. The NAACP supported the passage of
this bill from 1919 onward; they had not done so initially, arguing that the
bill was unconstitutional based on the recommendations of Moorfield Storey,
a lawyer and the first president of the NAACP. Storey revised his position
in 1918 and from 1919 onward the NAACP supported Dyer's anti-lynching legislation.
The Dyer Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on the 26th of January
1922, and was given a favorable report by the Senate Committee assigned to
report on it in July 1922, but its passage was halted by a filibuster in the
Senate. Efforts to pass similar legislation were not taken up again until
the 1930s with the Costigan-Wagner Bill. The Dyer Bill influenced the text
of anti-lynching legislation promoted by the NAACP into the 1950s, including
the Costigan-Wagner Bill.[20]

Below
is the text of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill as it appeared in 1922.

ANTILYNCHING BILL.

_______________

APRIL 20 (calendar
day, JULY 28), 1922.--Ordered to be printed.

_______________

AN ACT To assure to persons within the jurisdiction of every
State the equal protection of the laws, and to punish the crime of lynching.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the phrase "mob or riotous assemblage," when used in this act, shall mean an assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offense.

SEC. 2. That if any State or governmental subdivision thereof fails, neglects, or refuses to provide and maintain protection to the life of any person within its jurisdiction against a mob or riotous assemblage, such State shall by reason of such failure, neglect, or refusal be deemed to have denied to such person the equal protection of the laws of the State, and to the end that such protection as is guaranteed to the citizens of the United States by its Constitution may be secured it is provided:

SEC. 3. That any State or municipal
officer charged with the duty or who posesses the power or authority as
such officer to protect the life of any person that may be put to death
by any mob or riotous assemblage, or who has any such person in his charge
as a prisoner, who fails, neglects, or refuses to make all reasonable efforts
to prevent such person from being so put to death, or any State or municipal
officer charged with the duty of apprehending or prosecuting any person
participating in such mob or riotous assemblage who fails, neglects, or
refuses to make all reasonable efforts to perform his duty in apprehending
or prosecuting to final judgment under the laws of such State all persons
so participating except such, if any, as are to have been held to answer
for such participation in any district court of the United States, as herein
provided, shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall
be punished by imprisonment not exceeding five years or by a fine of not
exceeding $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Any State or municipal officer, acting as such officer under authority of State law, having in his custody or control a prisoner, who shall conspire, combine, or confederate with any person to put such prisoner to death without authority of law as a punishment for some alleged public offense, or who shall conspire, combine, or confederate with any person to suffer such prisoner to be taken or obtained from his custody or control for the purpose of being put to death without authority of law as a punishment for an alleged public offense, shall be guilty of a felony, and those who so conspire, combine, or confederate with such officer shall likewise be guilty of a felony. On conviction the parties participating therin shall be punished by imprisonment for life or not less than five years.

SEC. 4. That the district court of the judicial district wherein a person is put to death by a mob or riotous assemblage shall have jurisdiction to try and punish, in accordance with the laws of the State where the homicide is committed, those who participate therein: Provided, That it shall be charged in the indictment that by reason of the failure, neglect, or refusal of the officers of the State charged with the duty of prosecuting such offense under the laws of the State to proceed with due diligence to apprehend and prosecute such participants the State has denied to its citizens the equal protection of the laws. It shall not be necessary that the jurisdictional allegations herein required shall be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and it shall be sufficient if such allegations are sustained by a preponderance of the evidence.

SEC. 5. That any county in which
a person is put to death by a mob or riotous assemblage shall, if it is
alleged and proven that the officers of the State charged with the duty
of prosecuting criminally such offense under the laws of the State have
failed, neglected, or refused to proceed with due diligence to apprehend
and prosecute the participants in the mob or riotous assemblage, forfeit
$10,000, which sum may be recovered by an action therefor [sic] in the name
of the United States against any such county for the use of the family,
if any, of the person so put to death; if he had no family, then to his
dependent parents, if any; otherwise for the use of the United States. Such
action shall be brought and prosecuted by the district attorney of the United
States of the district in which such county is situated in any court of
the United States having jurisdiction therein. If such forfeiture is not
paid upon recovery of a judgment therefor [sic], such court shall have jurisdiction
to enforce payment thereof by levy of execution upon any property of the
county, or may compel the levy and collection of a tax, therefor [sic],
or may otherwise compel payment thereof by mandamus or other appropriate
process; and any officer of such county or other person who disobeys or
fails to comply with any lawful order of the court in the premises shall
be liable to punishment as for contempt and to any other penalty provided
by law therefor [sic].

SEC. 6. That in the event that any person so put to death shall have been transported by such mob or riotous assemblage from one county to another county during the time intervening between his capture and putting to death, the county in which he is seized and the county in which he is put to death shall be jointly and severally liable to pay the forfeiture herein provided.

SEC. 7. That any act committed in any State or Territory of the United States in violation of the rights of a citizen or subject of a foreign country secured to such citizen or subject by treaty between the United States and such foreign country, which act constitutes a crime under the laws of such State or Territory, shall constitute a like crime against the peace and dignity of the United States, punishable in like manner as in the courts of said State or Territory, and within the period limited by the laws of such State or Territory, and may be prosecuted in the courts of the United States, and upon conviction the sentence executed in like manner as sentences upon convictions for crimes under the laws of the United States.

SEC. 8. That in construing and applying this act the District of Columbia shall be deemed a county, as shall also each of the parishes of the State of Louisiana.

That if any section or provision of this acts shall be held by any court to be invalid, the balance of the act shall not for that reason be held invalid.